June 16, 2014
You're sitting in your office, checking your email, sorting through papers—a normal day—until you notice smoke curling under the door. Shortly after the fire alarm goes off. Everyone rushes down the stairs and out of the building. After checking to make sure all of your employees are safe, you feel a bit of relief—which is quickly replaced by terror when you begin to think about the damage done to your office and everything within, including your IT equipment. If you don't have an IT disaster recovery plan in place, you've just lost everything.
IT Disaster Recovery Plan
A disaster causes a major disruption in the flow of business; a recovery plan is designed to minimize the disruption and allow you to recover as quickly as possible. Thinking clearly in the immediate aftermath of a disaster is challenging because of the intense emotions caused by the situation. This is why it's important to you have a plan you can follow. This lessens the impact of the disaster and allows your business to return to normal as soon as possible.
If your business doesn't have a recovery plan when a disaster hits, here are a few of the traumatic experiences that could result:
- You lose data that you may never recover
- Vital transactions may not go through
- You miss out on the revenue and income in the immediate aftermath
- Excess downtime will wreak havoc on your bottom line
It is in the company’s and your employee’s best interest to have an effective IT disaster recovery plan in place—before disaster strikes.
Your Disaster Coverage
Unless you're an expert in disaster recovery, it's unlikely your recovery plan is comprehensive. For example, you may believe that if you back up all of your information you're completely prepared for any disaster. Unfortunately, it's not just your information that is at risk—if the hardware is damaged, your backups may not be accessible because their storage device is irreparable.
A quality disaster plan will include an on-site assessment that analyzes how your business operates and determine what you’ll need to prevent and prepare for any disasters. The plan will list critical applications of each part of your business and develop a way to make sure you can use these applications in the event of a disaster.
Your disaster plan should also be tested so that you know it works in practice, not just in theory. After all, the absolute worst time to discover that your plan doesn't work is when you need it the most.
Disaster Situations
Each business faces a variety of disaster scenarios. The most obvious and frequent is a power outage, but it's not the most dangerous. Fires or floods can decimate entire offices, just as an earthquake can decimate an entire city. Hardware failure or powerful computer viruses may also wreak havoc on your business's IT and have a significant effect on your bottom-line. Each of these situations needs to be prepared for, and the preparation for each situation is unique.
Managed IT
Most managed IT solutions offer a business an IT disaster recovery plan. Managed IT providers have experience developing a variety of recovery plans so they know how to develop one that is comprehensive and effective for your business.
A single disaster can end the future of your business. Brown out, hardware failure or fire – your business must be prepared to deal with all of them if it is to protect itself. Request a consultation with a Managed IT Specialist to discuss implementing a new, or enhancing your existing, disaster plan.
